a symphony of whales
At end of our family devotional each day, we read a picture book. I recently checked out A Symphony of Whales by Steve Schuch and illustrated by Peter Sylvada and today we read it. What a treasure! Blythe is fascinated by whales and I thought this would keep her interest, while also being of interest to the little ones. It is quite a trick having such diverse group of ages, interests, and abilities, but this book kept them all engaged.
This book is based on a true story of 3,000 beluga whales being trapped in the ice flows during the winter of 1984. A group of villagers and a Russion Icebreaker worked for seven weeks to clear a channel for the whales to escape to the open ocean before the winter cold completely froze the ice over and killed them all. Through the perseverance of the villagers, the tenacity of a little girl to follow inspiration received through dreams, and the beauty of classical music, they succeed in freeing the whales.
This wonderful story brings in arctic life, fulfilling your mission, listening to promptings, trusting our children, working hard, believing in miracles, the wisdom of the old, ocean life, ships, geography, and music. It is a gem! You can find it at your local library or on amazon right here.
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The Complete Book of Farmyard Tales was Keziah’s favorite book for a long time. In fact, she slept with it every night for over a year from around the ages of 3-4. She knew every story by heart and still loved for me to read it to her over and over. She loved this book till she was about 8 and even now continues to read stories to her younger siblings. Now, it is in Fisher’s top five. He insists it is “his” even though we have had it for years. This book has 20 stories about Poppy and Sam and their parents tending to Appletree Farm. The children are delightfully helpful and the animals are quite mischievous. Each page has things to find, count, or talk about and every single page has a little yellow duck that is hiding and is perfect for 1-5 year olds to find. It keeps the little ones’ attention so you can keep reading it to your older child. This wonderful book comes with a CD recording of all the stories in the book, has dual-reading levels for beginning and more advanced readers, and is bound with a ribbon so you can keep track of where you left off on your last reading adventure.
Telling the Time is another Farmyard Tales book, but this one has a little clock built right into the book. Poppy and Sam go through their day of farm chores and learn all about what time different jobs need to be done. The reader can move the built-in clock to keep up with the story. All times are in hour increments to start out and then half-hours are introduced at the end. The little hiding duck is an ever present character along with Curly, Wooley, Rusty and the rest of the farm animals.
The Beginners Series is a collection of books on a “newly independent reader level.” There are books on over 40 subjects, like Bugs, Planes, Ships, Caterpillars, Knights, Horses, and Sharks. These are slim, hardcover books that are perfect for carrying around in your purse. Children that can read love the bite-size chunks of information and children that aren’t reading yet learn a lot from the beautiful pictures that make up every page.
The Discovery Series is the next step up from the Beginners and have more information on each page along with amazing, real-life, up-close photography to really get a sense of the subject. You will find growling lions, waddling ducks, galivanting knights, and diving dolphins. Books are offered on a wide variety of subjects like Big Cats, Birds, Snakes, Space, Mummies & Pyramids, and Trains. These 48 page books are internet-linked which means that each page has an usborne-quicklinks.com link to take you to an assortment of adult-chosen/kid-approved websites on the specific topic of that page where you can learn more.
The Encyclopedia of World Geography is a book we use all the time in our homeschool. This book teaches about cultures and countries all over the world. There are maps, land descriptions, information about food, customs, dress, beliefs, education, and so much more. This is a gem of a book and is internet-linked so you can go to hand-picked websites to learn more at the drop of a hat (or is that a finger, on to the keyboard?)
One of Blythe’s all-time favorite books from about the ages of 8 – 11 was How to Draw Princesses and Ballerinas. She carried this book everywhere she went and drew and drew and drew. Each page has step-by-step instructions for how to draw the scene on the page. She would follow the directions and voila, a beautiful princess would appear. Then she got creative and drew her own masterpieces with the techniques she learned. I daresay she has drawn thousands (millions?) of princesses and much of her skill she got from this book.
The Art Treasury is a must have. I love, love, love this book! A painting from a famous artist is shown on a two color spread, along with information about the artist and his/her style of artwork. Then the next two pages teach you, step-by-step, how to do an art project in the same style as the artist. The projects are totally do-able, even for a person like me who cannot even draw a decent stick figure. This book is perfect for a busy homeschooler who wants to include a great art curriculum, but isn’t an artist and has no time to think about art on top of math, reading, history, geography, handwriting, science, music lessons, and DISHES!
For a more in-depth study of art history, check out the Usborne Introduction to Art. This 144 page book goes into great detail about all the major periods of art and has oodles of examples so you can really get a sense of the differences from the different style eras.
The That’s Not My series is a definite favorite around here. Fisher loved these books when he was younger and is just now starting to grow out of them. Each book has a rhythmic pattern to it and says “That’s not my lion, his paws are too scratchy” or “That’s not my lion, his tail is too fluffy.” At the end of the book, it says “That’s my lion, his mane is so soft.” Children quickly learn the story and love to finish each sentence and rub the touchy-feely textures on each page.
I'm Tracy, a mama with big dreams, crazy ideas, loads of laughter, an insatiable desire to learn, and enormous piles of laundry.
